Paper short abstract:

Based on the analysis of Fragmentos, a memorial designed by the artist Doris Salcedo and inaugurated in November 2018, this paper explores how contemporary art mediates mourning and memory after the Peace Accords in Colombia (2016).

Paper long abstract:

How does contemporary art allow us to rethink the practices of mourning and memory in Latin America? Can art operate as a form of symbolic reparation? If so, how does it do so? These are some of the questions I explore in this paper, based on the analysis of Fragmentos, a memorial designed by the Colombian artist Doris Salcedo and inaugurated in Bogotá in November 2018.

This place marks the consecration of the Peace Accords in Colombia (2016) and constitutes the first counter-monument dedicated to the memory of the armed conflict's victims. Fragmentos is composed of a floor made of 1288 sheets of metal from the smelting of 37 tons of weapons surrendered by the former FARC guerrillas and the marks of the hammer blows made by women victims of sexual violence during the conflict. The floor locates in a space surrounding the ruins of a building presumably dating from the 17th century.

Through the historical, visual and spatial analysis of the site, as well as through the study of the testimonies of visitors to the site and the audiovisual material linked to it, this paper argues that in a historical context in which the paradigm of the victim has been strongly installed in different spheres of Colombian and Latin American society, Salcedo's Fragmentos performatively unfolds the possibilities of reconciliation and reparation of the social bond through the agency of materialities, spaces and images.